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Germany fines YouTube for removing video of anti-lockdown protest

495 points by sbuttgereit 5y ago

throwawayswede 5y ago
Good. I'd rather live in chaos than a world controlled by these technocrats. Let's do Twitter while we're at it.
- chapium 5y ago
  I don't understand this, is controlling youtube's database that google hosts equivalent to controlling the "world"?
  - rolobio 5y ago
    Not yet, but its close. How many people know how to search the internet without Google? Google has become so ubiquitous that people are totally reliant on them. Look at Tulsi Gabbard, her advertising account was "accidentally" taken down after a successful presidential debate, making it so people couldn't find her. Sure they're a private company, and they made a mistake. But the direction of the mistakes are always in the direction the people running the company lean politically. https://web.archive.org/web/20210322220851/https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/04/technology/google-tulsi-gabbard-lawsuit.html https://web.archive.org/web/20210322220851/https://www.nytim...
- xxpor 5y ago
  State violence is being used to force a private company to host content it finds objectionable. Who's the technocrat here?
  - throwawayswede 5y ago
    The company doesn't find anything objectionable. It's the Who (a political org that has nothing to do with science) that is dictating what YouTube should do. YouTube and other technocrats believe that can tell people how and what they should think. With that being said, forcing a private company with state violence is not good either, unfortunately there's no magic wand to wave and reset everything. We shouldn't be pragmatic, but we have to be practical.
    - ModernMech 5y ago
      > It's the Who (a political org that has nothing to do with science) that is dictating what YouTube should do. How are they dictating this? What power does the WHO have over YouTube to force them to make this decision?
    - jokethrowaway 5y ago
      I see where you're coming from but I disagree that the WHO is the source or the holder of power. They don't have enough money for that. The WHO is probably just another puppet in the hands of richer state actors, as the infamous Taiwan Skype Interview show us: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fASh2_RzMuE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fASh2_RzMuE Besides, I don't even think the people involved in YouTube and on a similar level are directly influenced by anyone. They're just a liberal company parroting their party's political line and not noticing how totalitarian these measures are. It's people higher up setting the party line that are probably on the payroll of richer state actors. Most likely they also own the opposition to make sure nothing happens whoever is elected.
    - mousepilot 5y ago
      >YouTube and other technocrats believe that can tell people how and what they should think. If you go to youtube to be told what to think then you're probably using the internet for things it wasn't designed for lol
  - silicon2401 5y ago
    I wonder if you would agree to the following equivalent: > State violence is being used to force a christian bakery to bake (gay/muslim/etc) cakes it finds objectionable. Who's the villain here? The more you open service to the public, the more control over your output you lose because then it becomes a matter of discrimination.
    - happytoexplain 5y ago
      Why are they equivalent?
      - vageli 5y ago
        Both are instances of the state compelling a private enterprise to act in a way that is against the enterprise's interests.
    - hvac 5y ago
      Having a certain political opinion is not a protected class in the US
      - throwawayswede 5y ago
        That's not what this is about. In both cases, the state is forcing an company to do something they don't want. The only difference is that you agree with the one but not the other.
        hvac 5y ago
        Yes, because the difference is that they are essentially immutable personal traits. The parent was presenting this scenario as an equivalent one and I don't think they are.
        silicon2401 5y ago
        How is religion any more or less immutable from political beliefs? In my view both are fully equivalent.
  - nextlevelwizard 5y ago
    You can't have your cake and eat it too. Either Youtube needs to stop censoring videos or it needs to go through every single video it has and that gets uploaded
  - scotty79 5y ago
    Platform shouldn't have the right to an opinion on content. Same way that when you open a store you can't pick and choose your customers. Platforms should just obey law and at most create a process where users and lawmakers can express and enforce their opinion on content.
    - tedunangst 5y ago
      Should movie theaters be allowed to select which movies they show?
      - Const-me 5y ago
        There're many movie theaters, but only one youtube in the whole world. Youtube and facebook are natural monopolies due to their network effect. All the older natural monopolies, water networks, electricity networks, landline phone networks, railroad networks, and the rest of them are either nationalized, or regulated heavily. It's long overdue to add social networks to the list.
        anigbrowl 5y ago
        There's only one YouTube, but lots of video sharing sites. You can put your material on Bitchute, Vimeo, ....
        Const-me 5y ago
        Youtube's monopoly is not video hosting, there're many ways to do that. Their monopoly is their social network. People want to publish video where the audience is, the global audience happen to be on youtube, and going to stay there because that's where most videos are.
      - bobthechef 5y ago
        Not absolutely. They shouldn't be able to show porn, for example, or some other destructive content. (And no, it's not a question of taste or opinion. That relativist claim is worthless and tired. We're not talking about vanilla or chocolate ice cream here.) I suppose in this particular case (and that matters: things like this can be particular) you would just criminalize those sorts of movies. The idea that we shouldn't do such things because government could be used to impose horrible things is a bad one. Driving a car could kill you, but you wouldn't ban cars for that reason because cars are not bad in principle nor are they so dangerous that they should be banned. They are regulated, however, and this is good.
  - contravariant 5y ago
    Perhaps more importantly, what is 'technocrat' here? Because I'm fairly sure none of the accepted meanings make any sense.
  - xdennis 5y ago
    Google hosts billions of hours of video. It doesn't mind a few videos. They never argued that the costs are an issue.
  - CountDrewku 5y ago
    What are your thoughts on net neutrality?
  - bobthechef 5y ago
    What about private industry violence? Don't make Google out to be some victim. Private industry is pushing social changes that the US government could never dream of doing, not at this scale. Fear of government overreach needs to be balanced with fear of oligarchic overreach and corporate power.
- strogonoff 5y ago
  Losing control is what big social wants. The more they are regulated, the more intimate they are with the government, the safer and more entrenched their status. They already enjoy network effects and lock-in of their users; more rules widen the moat around the established players who got huge in the early unregulated days.
  - devoutsalsa 5y ago
    And the more compliance becomes a cost, the harder it is for underfunded upstarts to sneak in & grab marketshare.
  - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
    Saying things like "big social" does not make your argument more persuasive. It just makes you sound like part of the lunatic fringe. It also leaves people like me rather confused about what your point was in the first sentence.
    - imwillofficial 5y ago
      So it’s proper behavior for you to go around calling names because you’re confused? Get a grip.
    - jokethrowaway 5y ago
      I don't think "big social" is a term used by any group of people, including people you disagree with. I think it's a neologism and it's a comprehensible one. I interpret it as a big business doing social media.
  - the_optimist 5y ago
    Certainly not all forms of regulation result in regulatory capture. Simply following this German model where Google/Youtube isn't allowed to censor certain ideas doesn't lend itself to regulatory capture.
    - rocqua 5y ago
- LatteLazy 5y ago
  Really? You'd rather your children died of a preventable disease than YT ban antivax lies? Really?
  - byset 5y ago
    Can’t one frame either side of any controversy using these sorts of histrionics? This makes us all stupider.
    - LatteLazy 5y ago
      That's sort of my point: people make histrionic statements about freedom and chaos. Then you point out what those actually mean...
      - philovivero 5y ago
        Just stop. Repeat after me: "My apologies. I got a bit angry and said some things I didn't mean."
  - bobthechef 5y ago
    Opposition to _coerced COVID vaccination_, whether through law or through imposed burdens on those that don't, isn't antivax. Not even close. Speaking of lies, children are at virtually zero risk of death. Even if we put aside concerns about the COVID vaccine, there is no legitimate reason to require vaccination of the young. Being able to post videos that offer different points of view, many of them by healthcare professionals and people in medicine, is a good thing. The frantic desire to silence all discussion, no matter how level-headed and banal, that departs in the slightest from the "official narrative" only creates suspicion and distrust. We're not talking about censoring calls to violence (some of which were have not been censored by media platforms, btw, because the targets are political opponents). We're not even talking about weird conspiracy theories that barely anyone but a few people believe. We're talking about discussion about an experimental vaccine and the real dangers of COVID backed by data. (And btw, the whole antivax "controversy" is a media circus. 98% of Americans have the full regime of vaccines. That's a lot of vaccines. There is no real antivax problem. It's media hype. This given even the moral objections to e.g. the rubella vaccine's origins.)
- bobthechef 5y ago
  That's a false dichotomy. No society has ever been on any extreme, certainly not a livable one. While there are inviolable limits to what is morally acceptable, and things you should never do, you cannot decide everything beforehand because some things are highly contingent on circumstances. So this is a never-ending process of determining those things. It's called prudence.
cauliflower2718 5y ago
The article calls this a "historically high fine". It's also really small compared to the scale of YouTube dollars, i.e. for YouTube to care (about this fine in isolation).
- ocdtrekkie 5y ago
  So generally what has been happening is there's a fine that's meager by Google's standards, but also a demand for a change in behavior. If compliance isn't met, the government will start fining them daily. I believe the announcement France made yesterday came with a large single fine, a window for compliance, and then a daily fine of nearly a million Euros per day if they don't comply in time. The goal is to incentivize change, not extract financial benefit for the country. So your first penalty isn't huge in itself, but it's designed to make it clear that noncompliance in the long run will be less profitable.
- throwawayswede 5y ago
  True. It's definitely not enough to send people off their loops. But hopefully it's a step in the right direction. My prediction is that in the next 2 to 3 years more detail will emerge on the massive scam that is lockdowns. I don't expect people to go back and evaluate their behavior towards others who did not believe the media scam (from people being aggressive towards people deciding not to wear mask for example), but I hope that it'll be a step in the reversion of group-think. Edit: People continuously downvote my negative comments about lockdowns. I leave you with this before you downvote: https://twitter.com/janesays22/status/1415354369126457346 https://twitter.com/janesays22/status/1415354369126457346 > I turned 18 in Feb 2020. I lost my friends, my education, the first year of my adult life, my mental health, and 20lbs. > I didn’t make sacrifices. > I was sacrificed. Look up: https://gbdeclaration.org/ https://gbdeclaration.org/ - http://pandata.org/ http://pandata.org/
  - ipaddr 5y ago
    Youtube classified this as "misinformation". They have the power to crush any voice and they are. I hope a crisis takes some power away from them.
boring_twenties 5y ago
I'm not sure I like the notion of a private entity being forced to host content they don't want to host. If it only applied to effective monopolies like YouTube, I would be more inclined to agree with it, but the article doesn't seem to know anything about that.
- ipaddr 5y ago
  They are not forced to do anything but live up to the contract they signed.
  - ErikCorry 5y ago
    Google signed a contract? Do you have the text of this contract?
    - flutas 5y ago
      It's the TOS. When you agree to it, you are entering into a contract with that company. In exchange for agreeing to their terms, you get access to their services.
  - boring_twenties 5y ago
    Do you have some more details about this? Because there's nothing informative in the article. I find it extremely difficult to believe that Google signed a contract obligating it to host any and all content uploaded by the user, regardless of what it is. But hey, I've been surprised before.
    - red_trumpet 5y ago
      IANAL, but if I understand this German article [1] correctly, then the changes in Youtube's ToS were not contractually effective, because the user was not asked to comply. The fine was then imposed because Youtube took > 3 weeks to comply with the court's order to make the video accessible. [1] https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article232421961/OLG-Dresden-verhaengt-100-000-Euro-Ordnungsgeld-gegen-YouTube.html https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article232421961/OLG...
ntrz 5y ago
> The German court held that YouTube failed to make its enforcement authority clear in its contract with the account operator who posted the video. Does YouTube's TOS really not contain statements giving them the ability to stop hosting any video, at any time, for any reason? Edit: I guess not: the only content removal clause I see is this one, which is definitely not "we can remove your video for any reason, as long as we feel like it." I'm a little surprised they don't seem to have included anything like that. > If we reasonably believe that any Content is in breach of this Agreement or may cause harm to YouTube, our users, or third parties, we may remove or take down that Content in our discretion. (from https://www.youtube.com/static?template=terms https://www.youtube.com/static?template=terms)
- beezischillin 5y ago
  They probably do. Powerful enough governments can just choose to ignore or re-interpret things any way they like and act on them, though.
  - gruez 5y ago
    >Powerful enough governments can just choose to ignore or re-interpret things any way they like and act on them, though. Seems like a common trend in many countries around the world. Tech companies tend to be american, so they're a popular punching bag/scapegoat when it comes to enforcement actions.
  - slowmovintarget 5y ago
    The original meaning of "...the pen is mightier than the sword." The clause in the sentence before that part reads "Beneath the rule of men entirely great,..." It was referring to authoritarian government.
- tylersmith 5y ago
  > YouTube unsuccessfully argued the video violated its policies on Covid-19 “misinformation.” It sounds like YouTube's stance is that the video may cause harm to their users; one of their criteria for removal.
anm89 5y ago
Naval Ravikant seems to be a divisive figure here but I think he made a profound point when he discussed this topic on Joe Rogan's podcast. The point was that, as a platform, you cross a line which is very difficult to ever revert when you optionally censor your platform in response to political pressure because both sides are then forced from a game theory perspective to aggressively pursue censoring your platform in their favor lest the other does it first. The platform ends up being collateral damage in some political war they never cared about in the first place and they can never win because no matter who they bend too, it automatically enrages the other side. This seems like where youtube and twitter and facebook are at now. They caved to censoring things that were reasonable, but now anyone can make them censor anything as long as they have some poltical power somewhere. It's not going to end well for them. Their only winning move was to stay neutral and do nothing but comply with legal requests.
- iamdbtoo 5y ago
  > The platform ends up being collateral damage in some political war they never cared about in the first place and they can never win because no matter who they bend too, it automatically enrages the other side. To me, the fact that they don't care about it is the problem. Those companies are having issues because they have no moral or ethical compass. It's become untenable for them to remain neutral because there is no neutral actor in this scenario. There's never going to be a service that's not held to a moral standard for their content regardless of what the law says.
  - anm89 5y ago
    You seem to assume that if they cared, they'd be on your side. What makes you think that that's the case? They are first and foremost accountable to shareholders who want profit. It's unlikely that they view the world the same way you do. You probably don't want them throwing their weight around You can argue that you don't like that they are accountable to their shareholders but it is true.
    - iamdbtoo 5y ago
      No, I don't assume that. That's a very wrong assumption on your part.
villgax 5y ago
Pretty similar to what India govt did with farmer protests by acting as if it didn't happen & anyone contradicting the govt was branded as anti-national for stupid reasons
- pySSK 5y ago
  This is the opposite however, where Germany is standing up for the rights of people opposed to the the government. I can't imagine Modi government doing anything like that. It would have been similar had India fined YouTube for removing videos of farmer protests.
chomp 5y ago
What's the law in question? If someone posts something that (in my opinion alone) is ridiculous as a comment on my blog and I remove it, would I have to pay a fine in Germany? Why is it okay for the government to compel speech? Edit: Looks like it's for not upholding its terms of service.
- dqpb 5y ago
  What would you think about a telecom that prevents you from calling someone because of the things they’ve been saying over the phone?
  - chomp 5y ago
    I’d say I’d find a new telecom. Or I’d start or invest in a competitor. At what size and revenue does one lose the ability to remove speech they don’t agree with? If someone posts publicly viewable speech, is it my rite to bear that speech forever?
Navarr 5y ago
What's the law they ran afoul of here? I'm getting the impression from the Google Translate'd version of this[1] article, that they violated a contract with the company? [1]: https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article232421961/OLG-Dresden-verhaengt-100-000-Euro-Ordnungsgeld-gegen-YouTube.html https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article232421961/OLG...
- er4hn 5y ago
  It looks like the issue was the amount of time that Google took to comply. Per the article: > “With the historically high fine, the Higher Regional Court makes it very clear that court decisions must be observed without restriction, regardless of whether YouTube assumes a violation of its guidelines or not,”
- red_trumpet 5y ago
  If I understand correctly, the fine was imposed because Youtube failed to comply with the order of the court to make the video accessible again, which took them several weeks (20. April - 14. May 2020). What confuses me is that the article states the video was removed in January, which would only make sense if it was January 2021, because January 2020 there were no restrictions in Switzerland. Maybe the above date should be May 2021. I think the relevant piece from the Welt article is this: > Es [the court] kam unter anderem zu dem Schluss, die geänderten Richtlinien seien nicht wirksam in den Vertrag mit dem Accountbetreiber einbezogen worden. Hierzu sei ein Änderungsvertrag erforderlich. Der bloße Hinweis, dass es künftig Änderungen geben könne, genüge nicht. Roughly translated, the changed ToS of Youtube were not contractually effective, because the user was not asked to accept them. Stating that changes can happen any time is not enough.
  - onli 5y ago
    Should be about something else than ToS, the quote is talking about a contract. The news is not sufficient to understand what supposedly happened there. That the Youtuber had a contract with Youtube, is that common? Maybe the court judged the partner program agreements as one? That "future changes may apply without notice" is invalid in Germany, that's evident. Companies writing bullshit like that in AGBs (ToS) or contracts don't realize Germany is not the US, they need a new legal team. If the news is correct you are right about the fine being about ignoring the court, not about removing the video in the first place. With a fine that high it has to be about that, there is no way removing a regular video could cause this. Basically the court saw youtube in contempt of the court, kinda. Might also be politically charged though, East Germany is highly penetrated by Nazis and with a high percentage of corona deniers. Depends on the judge of course whether that was a factor here.
dkdk8283 5y ago
Great! Time to bring this ideological principles to the US.
deadalus 5y ago
Youtube Alternatives : Centralized : Dailymotion, Bitchute, Rumble, DTube, Vimeo, Vidlii Decentralized : Odysee(LBRY), Peertube
- rickstanley 5y ago
  How does one contribute to these (de)centralized alternatives? Apart from sharing links?
  - deadalus 5y ago
    You can upload videos and help seed videos too. Other ways to help are here : https://lbry.tech/contribute https://lbry.tech/contribute
- ravenstine 5y ago
  All the alternatives are far-far-right as far as "trusted sources" are concerned. What is anyone supposed to do if even LBRY is considered a tool of radical right wing extremists? If you cant get your family and friends on it then its near worthless.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - readflaggedcomm 5y ago
    If they're that prejudiced against tools based on political reputation, then they weren't that interested in using the tool in the first place.
- meowster 5y ago
  > Bitchute Never heard of them, but they seem to have chosen a poor name that might be censored elsewhere due to the first five letters.
  - beezischillin 5y ago
partiallypro 5y ago
Merkel has stated that she didn't believe it was good that Facebook/Twitter banned Trump from their platforms fwiw.
- jacob2484 5y ago
  She also very strongly condemned what happened on Jan 6 and blamed Trump for it. She's right on both fronts.
- nnamtr 5y ago
  Merkel grew up in a country where you could be "banned" for anything. I'm not surprised that she doesn't like the idea of private companies deciding according to their own (not democraticly chosen) rules who should speak and who shouldn't.
- namlem 5y ago
  I don't see why Trump should be above the terms of service that all other users have to abide by.
  - supergirl 5y ago
    it's not really about TOS though. it's about Twitter being legally allowed to remove any content from their website for whatever reason. the question is should they be allowed to do this given the monopoly they have. But I find it hilarious that Twitter/Google/etc. champion "free speech" in Russia, China, etc. yet in US they literally censored the sitting president and many people are OK with this.
    - namlem 5y ago
      There is certainly an argument to be made against arbitrary removals of content. I agree that perhaps there should be limits on networks above a certain size. However, Twitter banning Trump was anything but arbitrary. The fact that they didn't ban him sooner despite his frequent violations of their TOS is evidence that they were biased in his favor, if anything.
    - 5y ago
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
howmayiannoyyou 5y ago
We blame Youtube/Google management, but in reality it's as much a tyranny of the company's employees and their political leanings. We've done a terrible job the last 30 years promoting national security literacy and constitutional integrity preservation to our youth. It may well be this country's undoing. No exaggeration.
- jacob2484 5y ago
  Couldn't agree more
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
neom 5y ago
Curious: Why can Germany fine YT for something that happened in Switzerland?
- zionic 5y ago
  Germany has a military/police force and Google doesn’t, yet.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- MauranKilom 5y ago
  Just that the video was taken in Switzerland does not mean that a German court has no jurisdiction over a user uploading said video (presumably from Germany - not clear from this article or a German source version).
  - neom 5y ago
    I understand, I was searching around myself for the answer, but I'm not at all versed in EU or German law. Only thing I could think of is it doesn't matter where it was filmed or who uploaded it, if was removed from german audience of youtube? Or it was filmed in Switzerland and uploaded by a German? I can't find anything in the news and I'd love to know the answer to this :)
- notquitehuman 5y ago
  It looks and sounds like imperialism, but perhaps there’s a more benign reason?
yreg 5y ago
Maybe an unpopular opinion, but I believe a website should be able to choose what videos it hosts. If it wants to host anything legal, liveleak-style - then that's fine. But if it decides to remove whatever video it wants then that also should be fine.
- gentleman11 5y ago
  It’s not a website, it’s almost every video on the internet and competitors can’t exist because of network effects
  - eli 5y ago
    Sounds like an antitrust problem not a content policy problem
    - AdrianB1 5y ago
      Yes, you are right, but until the antitrust problem is solved, it is a content policy problem.
- CountDrewku 5y ago
  That's fine until a business monopolizes the entire industry and starts working in collusion with other tech companies to remove content they deem inappropriate.
- rocqua 5y ago
  This would work so much better in a federated model. One where there are multiple mutually compatible YouTube providers. If your current provider has a weird content policy, then you move. If all providers have a policy you don't like, then either you start your own, or you happen to be at the fringe of society. People so far at the fringe that they cannot gather momentum (especially on the internet) are either clearly wrong, or illegal. The second option still gives avenues for censorship. But hopefully democratic principles keep that under control.
- FabHK 5y ago
theandrewbailey 5y ago
> "We have a responsibility to connect our users with trustworthy information and to combat misinformation during Covid-19." Who gave them that responsibility? I didn't. If no one did, why do they think they have that responsibility? Do they feel that they are the final authority on all matters that they forget that their users are humans capable of coming to their own conclusions?
- bjoli 5y ago
  Do you believe that a central part in how many people interact with the internet doesnt have any moral responsibilities?
the_optimist 5y ago
Does anyone have a link to the argument from Youtube/Google on why they chose to remove videos of this documentary information? Was there some philosophy that they claimed to be representing? What was the basis? Can this be interpreted in any way other than a vulgar attempt to misrepresent historic reality?
- spfzero 5y ago
  I believe they'd say it fell under their "covid misinformation" ban. I don't know how they can say that some video of a thing that actually happened, as it was happening, could be "misinformation", but that term gets to be interpreted however anyone wants these days.
supergirl 5y ago
the fine is for not obeying the court order to put back the video: > “With the historically high fine, the Higher Regional Court makes it very clear that court decisions must be observed without restriction, regardless of whether YouTube assumes a violation of its guidelines or not,” an attorney for the plaintiff, Joachin Steinhoefel, said in a statement on Twitter.
johnnyApplePRNG 5y ago
Anyone have a link to the actual video in question?
eqvinox 5y ago
I've tried to find the actual court decision, best match seems to be 4 W 118/21 (enter on https://www.justiz.sachsen.de/esamosplus/pages/index.aspx https://www.justiz.sachsen.de/esamosplus/pages/index.aspx under "Aktenzeichen" & click "suchen", can't see any obvious way to link the PDF...) However, that document does not actually order a fine. It warns about imposing one ("up to 250'000€") if Youtube doesn't remedy the problem. Considering it's now exactly 3 months later (decision dates April 13th), that lines up. From what I understand (not a lawyer, yadda yadda) this is a purely civil matter and doesn't really go as far as some statement on free speech. The issue discussed mostly seems to revolve around which terms of service are valid and how they can be changed.
elevenoh 5y ago
Is youtube really that willing to kill their reputation in the eyes of all truth seekers?
holoduke 5y ago
A good move. Everything so big as YouTube should follow national laws. Otherwise private terms of policies become more part of society than national ones. Then the hundreds of years of fighting becomes nothing and we are back in a modern kingdom based society.
- shdh 5y ago
  It would be interesting to apply a varying degree of regulation based on an organizations size/revenue. Startups less regulation, global conglomerates more regulation.
- bpsh 5y ago
  What if it is an authoritarian government that enacts national laws for the purpose of censorship?
  - oceanplexian 5y ago
    They already do, and Google complies with those laws. See China. It is quite telling that Google seems to put more effort into complying with the CCP than German law, however.
  - cblconfederate 5y ago
    When did youtube , or any big tech not comply with local laws in authoritarian countries? Never, their position is not one of activism it's "I'm OK with that" https://www.engadget.com/facebook-turkey-emails-200407588.html https://www.engadget.com/facebook-turkey-emails-200407588.ht...?
  - genericone 5y ago
    Companies themselves are authoritarian organizations that enact international policies for the purpose of extracting wealth from a local population. Countries that have skin in the game for their own geography are the least of your worries, they are optimizing locally. Meddlers without skin in the game are more problematic.
- ehsankia 5y ago
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
FabHK 5y ago
IANAL. But reading the "Urteil", it seems that it is rather technical in nature. In particular, someone uploaded a video. YT said that it violated its COVID-19 guidelines and removed it. Plaintiff said, listen, we had a contract, you can't just delete my stuff. YT said, well, the movie contravenes the current COVID-19 guidelines. Plaintiff said, well, but it doesn't contravene the guidelines you had at the time we made the contract. YT says, fair enough, but we changed the guidelines. Court says, you can't just unilaterally change the ToS unless you make a new contract. YT said, well, we said we could change the guidelines. Court says, yeah, but just saying that the guidelines might change does not give you the right to change the guidelines unilaterally unless you say in the ToS not only that you might change the ToS but that you reserve the right to unilaterally change the ToS and then notify the user of the changed ToS and then have the user agree to the new ToS (either explicitly or implicitly by continuing to use the service). Thus, old ToS apply. So, don't remove the video that was in line with old guidelines. TLDR: - YT has to pay a fine because the court says, look, there was a contract, stick to it, and they didn't stick to it. - This has nothing to do with COVID-19, or free speech. It's purely contract law. - My prediction: YT will change its ToS and include the pertinent clauses, we'll all agree to the new ones, and then they'll be able to delete anything they want anytime they want (in accordance with their new ToS).
idownvoted 5y ago
It certainly wasn’t “Germany“ that fined YouTube. Because… a) anti-lockdown is anti Government b) the removals are usually done by outsourcing service providers, often ironically by Arvato a subsidiary of Germany‘s biggest media conglomerate and staunch supporter of the lockdowns and last but not least because c) it was a regional court that slapped the fine Note that it did so not because of the „severity“ which it assigned to YT‘s malfeasance, but because big tech is so powerful that it just didn’t care what that local court had ordered in the first place. 100k€ is nothing to google so prepare for bigger sums until their service desk responds to the rule of law.
failwhaleshark 5y ago
Interesting. What happens when one country requires removing content while another country requires it to stay?
thatsabadidea 5y ago
So many censorship apologists.
joshsyn 5y ago
It would be nice if google simply ceases operation in Germany and blame its government for adding difficulties and then watch the germans infuriate over their own government.
- dirkt 5y ago
  Youtube already tried [1] this for seven years with music videos in their licensing disagreement with the GEMA. And the world didn't break down in Germany, even though plenty of Germans were infuriated, which is why I guess they came to an agreement in the end... [1] https://www.dw.com/en/why-the-youtube-music-deal-in-germany-doesnt-make-every-video-available/a-36233864 https://www.dw.com/en/why-the-youtube-music-deal-in-germany-...
  - em-bee 5y ago
    a lot of germans sided with youtube on this one. the overreach of the GEMA is a thorn in the side of many music producers and consumers

495 points by sbuttgereit 5y ago

throwawayswede 5y ago

Good. I'd rather live in chaos than a world controlled by these technocrats. Let's do Twitter while we're at it.

chapium 5y ago
I don't understand this, is controlling youtube's database that google hosts equivalent to controlling the "world"?
- rolobio 5y ago
  Not yet, but its close. How many people know how to search the internet without Google? Google has become so ubiquitous that people are totally reliant on them. Look at Tulsi Gabbard, her advertising account was "accidentally" taken down after a successful presidential debate, making it so people couldn't find her. Sure they're a private company, and they made a mistake. But the direction of the mistakes are always in the direction the people running the company lean politically. https://web.archive.org/web/20210322220851/https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/04/technology/google-tulsi-gabbard-lawsuit.html https://web.archive.org/web/20210322220851/https://www.nytim...
xxpor 5y ago
State violence is being used to force a private company to host content it finds objectionable. Who's the technocrat here?
- throwawayswede 5y ago
  The company doesn't find anything objectionable. It's the Who (a political org that has nothing to do with science) that is dictating what YouTube should do. YouTube and other technocrats believe that can tell people how and what they should think. With that being said, forcing a private company with state violence is not good either, unfortunately there's no magic wand to wave and reset everything. We shouldn't be pragmatic, but we have to be practical.
  - ModernMech 5y ago
    > It's the Who (a political org that has nothing to do with science) that is dictating what YouTube should do. How are they dictating this? What power does the WHO have over YouTube to force them to make this decision?
  - jokethrowaway 5y ago
    I see where you're coming from but I disagree that the WHO is the source or the holder of power. They don't have enough money for that. The WHO is probably just another puppet in the hands of richer state actors, as the infamous Taiwan Skype Interview show us: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fASh2_RzMuE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fASh2_RzMuE Besides, I don't even think the people involved in YouTube and on a similar level are directly influenced by anyone. They're just a liberal company parroting their party's political line and not noticing how totalitarian these measures are. It's people higher up setting the party line that are probably on the payroll of richer state actors. Most likely they also own the opposition to make sure nothing happens whoever is elected.
  - mousepilot 5y ago
    >YouTube and other technocrats believe that can tell people how and what they should think. If you go to youtube to be told what to think then you're probably using the internet for things it wasn't designed for lol
- silicon2401 5y ago
  I wonder if you would agree to the following equivalent: > State violence is being used to force a christian bakery to bake (gay/muslim/etc) cakes it finds objectionable. Who's the villain here? The more you open service to the public, the more control over your output you lose because then it becomes a matter of discrimination.
  - happytoexplain 5y ago
    Why are they equivalent?
    - vageli 5y ago
      Both are instances of the state compelling a private enterprise to act in a way that is against the enterprise's interests.
  - hvac 5y ago
    Having a certain political opinion is not a protected class in the US
    - throwawayswede 5y ago
      That's not what this is about. In both cases, the state is forcing an company to do something they don't want. The only difference is that you agree with the one but not the other.
      - hvac 5y ago
        Yes, because the difference is that they are essentially immutable personal traits. The parent was presenting this scenario as an equivalent one and I don't think they are.
        silicon2401 5y ago
        How is religion any more or less immutable from political beliefs? In my view both are fully equivalent.
- nextlevelwizard 5y ago
  You can't have your cake and eat it too. Either Youtube needs to stop censoring videos or it needs to go through every single video it has and that gets uploaded
- scotty79 5y ago
  Platform shouldn't have the right to an opinion on content. Same way that when you open a store you can't pick and choose your customers. Platforms should just obey law and at most create a process where users and lawmakers can express and enforce their opinion on content.
  - tedunangst 5y ago
    Should movie theaters be allowed to select which movies they show?
    - Const-me 5y ago
      There're many movie theaters, but only one youtube in the whole world. Youtube and facebook are natural monopolies due to their network effect. All the older natural monopolies, water networks, electricity networks, landline phone networks, railroad networks, and the rest of them are either nationalized, or regulated heavily. It's long overdue to add social networks to the list.
      - anigbrowl 5y ago
        There's only one YouTube, but lots of video sharing sites. You can put your material on Bitchute, Vimeo, ....
        Const-me 5y ago
        Youtube's monopoly is not video hosting, there're many ways to do that. Their monopoly is their social network. People want to publish video where the audience is, the global audience happen to be on youtube, and going to stay there because that's where most videos are.
    - bobthechef 5y ago
      Not absolutely. They shouldn't be able to show porn, for example, or some other destructive content. (And no, it's not a question of taste or opinion. That relativist claim is worthless and tired. We're not talking about vanilla or chocolate ice cream here.) I suppose in this particular case (and that matters: things like this can be particular) you would just criminalize those sorts of movies. The idea that we shouldn't do such things because government could be used to impose horrible things is a bad one. Driving a car could kill you, but you wouldn't ban cars for that reason because cars are not bad in principle nor are they so dangerous that they should be banned. They are regulated, however, and this is good.
- contravariant 5y ago
  Perhaps more importantly, what is 'technocrat' here? Because I'm fairly sure none of the accepted meanings make any sense.
- xdennis 5y ago
  Google hosts billions of hours of video. It doesn't mind a few videos. They never argued that the costs are an issue.
- CountDrewku 5y ago
  What are your thoughts on net neutrality?
- bobthechef 5y ago
  What about private industry violence? Don't make Google out to be some victim. Private industry is pushing social changes that the US government could never dream of doing, not at this scale. Fear of government overreach needs to be balanced with fear of oligarchic overreach and corporate power.
strogonoff 5y ago
Losing control is what big social wants. The more they are regulated, the more intimate they are with the government, the safer and more entrenched their status. They already enjoy network effects and lock-in of their users; more rules widen the moat around the established players who got huge in the early unregulated days.
- devoutsalsa 5y ago
  And the more compliance becomes a cost, the harder it is for underfunded upstarts to sneak in & grab marketshare.
- AnimalMuppet 5y ago
  Saying things like "big social" does not make your argument more persuasive. It just makes you sound like part of the lunatic fringe. It also leaves people like me rather confused about what your point was in the first sentence.
  - imwillofficial 5y ago
    So it’s proper behavior for you to go around calling names because you’re confused? Get a grip.
  - jokethrowaway 5y ago
    I don't think "big social" is a term used by any group of people, including people you disagree with. I think it's a neologism and it's a comprehensible one. I interpret it as a big business doing social media.
- the_optimist 5y ago
  Certainly not all forms of regulation result in regulatory capture. Simply following this German model where Google/Youtube isn't allowed to censor certain ideas doesn't lend itself to regulatory capture.
  - rocqua 5y ago
LatteLazy 5y ago
Really? You'd rather your children died of a preventable disease than YT ban antivax lies? Really?
- byset 5y ago
  Can’t one frame either side of any controversy using these sorts of histrionics? This makes us all stupider.
  - LatteLazy 5y ago
    That's sort of my point: people make histrionic statements about freedom and chaos. Then you point out what those actually mean...
    - philovivero 5y ago
      Just stop. Repeat after me: "My apologies. I got a bit angry and said some things I didn't mean."
- bobthechef 5y ago
  Opposition to _coerced COVID vaccination_, whether through law or through imposed burdens on those that don't, isn't antivax. Not even close. Speaking of lies, children are at virtually zero risk of death. Even if we put aside concerns about the COVID vaccine, there is no legitimate reason to require vaccination of the young. Being able to post videos that offer different points of view, many of them by healthcare professionals and people in medicine, is a good thing. The frantic desire to silence all discussion, no matter how level-headed and banal, that departs in the slightest from the "official narrative" only creates suspicion and distrust. We're not talking about censoring calls to violence (some of which were have not been censored by media platforms, btw, because the targets are political opponents). We're not even talking about weird conspiracy theories that barely anyone but a few people believe. We're talking about discussion about an experimental vaccine and the real dangers of COVID backed by data. (And btw, the whole antivax "controversy" is a media circus. 98% of Americans have the full regime of vaccines. That's a lot of vaccines. There is no real antivax problem. It's media hype. This given even the moral objections to e.g. the rubella vaccine's origins.)
bobthechef 5y ago
That's a false dichotomy. No society has ever been on any extreme, certainly not a livable one. While there are inviolable limits to what is morally acceptable, and things you should never do, you cannot decide everything beforehand because some things are highly contingent on circumstances. So this is a never-ending process of determining those things. It's called prudence.

cauliflower2718 5y ago

The article calls this a "historically high fine". It's also really small compared to the scale of YouTube dollars, i.e. for YouTube to care (about this fine in isolation).

ocdtrekkie 5y ago
So generally what has been happening is there's a fine that's meager by Google's standards, but also a demand for a change in behavior. If compliance isn't met, the government will start fining them daily. I believe the announcement France made yesterday came with a large single fine, a window for compliance, and then a daily fine of nearly a million Euros per day if they don't comply in time. The goal is to incentivize change, not extract financial benefit for the country. So your first penalty isn't huge in itself, but it's designed to make it clear that noncompliance in the long run will be less profitable.
throwawayswede 5y ago
True. It's definitely not enough to send people off their loops. But hopefully it's a step in the right direction. My prediction is that in the next 2 to 3 years more detail will emerge on the massive scam that is lockdowns. I don't expect people to go back and evaluate their behavior towards others who did not believe the media scam (from people being aggressive towards people deciding not to wear mask for example), but I hope that it'll be a step in the reversion of group-think. Edit: People continuously downvote my negative comments about lockdowns. I leave you with this before you downvote: https://twitter.com/janesays22/status/1415354369126457346 https://twitter.com/janesays22/status/1415354369126457346 > I turned 18 in Feb 2020. I lost my friends, my education, the first year of my adult life, my mental health, and 20lbs. > I didn’t make sacrifices. > I was sacrificed. Look up: https://gbdeclaration.org/ https://gbdeclaration.org/ - http://pandata.org/ http://pandata.org/
- ipaddr 5y ago
  Youtube classified this as "misinformation". They have the power to crush any voice and they are. I hope a crisis takes some power away from them.

boring_twenties 5y ago

I'm not sure I like the notion of a private entity being forced to host content they don't want to host. If it only applied to effective monopolies like YouTube, I would be more inclined to agree with it, but the article doesn't seem to know anything about that.

ipaddr 5y ago
They are not forced to do anything but live up to the contract they signed.
- ErikCorry 5y ago
  Google signed a contract? Do you have the text of this contract?
  - flutas 5y ago
    It's the TOS. When you agree to it, you are entering into a contract with that company. In exchange for agreeing to their terms, you get access to their services.
- boring_twenties 5y ago
  Do you have some more details about this? Because there's nothing informative in the article. I find it extremely difficult to believe that Google signed a contract obligating it to host any and all content uploaded by the user, regardless of what it is. But hey, I've been surprised before.
  - red_trumpet 5y ago
    IANAL, but if I understand this German article [1] correctly, then the changes in Youtube's ToS were not contractually effective, because the user was not asked to comply. The fine was then imposed because Youtube took > 3 weeks to comply with the court's order to make the video accessible. [1] https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article232421961/OLG-Dresden-verhaengt-100-000-Euro-Ordnungsgeld-gegen-YouTube.html https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article232421961/OLG...

ntrz 5y ago

> The German court held that YouTube failed to make its enforcement authority clear in its contract with the account operator who posted the video. Does YouTube's TOS really not contain statements giving them the ability to stop hosting any video, at any time, for any reason? Edit: I guess not: the only content removal clause I see is this one, which is definitely not "we can remove your video for any reason, as long as we feel like it." I'm a little surprised they don't seem to have included anything like that. > If we reasonably believe that any Content is in breach of this Agreement or may cause harm to YouTube, our users, or third parties, we may remove or take down that Content in our discretion. (from https://www.youtube.com/static?template=terms https://www.youtube.com/static?template=terms)

beezischillin 5y ago
They probably do. Powerful enough governments can just choose to ignore or re-interpret things any way they like and act on them, though.
- gruez 5y ago
  >Powerful enough governments can just choose to ignore or re-interpret things any way they like and act on them, though. Seems like a common trend in many countries around the world. Tech companies tend to be american, so they're a popular punching bag/scapegoat when it comes to enforcement actions.
- slowmovintarget 5y ago
  The original meaning of "...the pen is mightier than the sword." The clause in the sentence before that part reads "Beneath the rule of men entirely great,..." It was referring to authoritarian government.
tylersmith 5y ago
> YouTube unsuccessfully argued the video violated its policies on Covid-19 “misinformation.” It sounds like YouTube's stance is that the video may cause harm to their users; one of their criteria for removal.

anm89 5y ago

Naval Ravikant seems to be a divisive figure here but I think he made a profound point when he discussed this topic on Joe Rogan's podcast. The point was that, as a platform, you cross a line which is very difficult to ever revert when you optionally censor your platform in response to political pressure because both sides are then forced from a game theory perspective to aggressively pursue censoring your platform in their favor lest the other does it first. The platform ends up being collateral damage in some political war they never cared about in the first place and they can never win because no matter who they bend too, it automatically enrages the other side. This seems like where youtube and twitter and facebook are at now. They caved to censoring things that were reasonable, but now anyone can make them censor anything as long as they have some poltical power somewhere. It's not going to end well for them. Their only winning move was to stay neutral and do nothing but comply with legal requests.

iamdbtoo 5y ago
> The platform ends up being collateral damage in some political war they never cared about in the first place and they can never win because no matter who they bend too, it automatically enrages the other side. To me, the fact that they don't care about it is the problem. Those companies are having issues because they have no moral or ethical compass. It's become untenable for them to remain neutral because there is no neutral actor in this scenario. There's never going to be a service that's not held to a moral standard for their content regardless of what the law says.
- anm89 5y ago
  You seem to assume that if they cared, they'd be on your side. What makes you think that that's the case? They are first and foremost accountable to shareholders who want profit. It's unlikely that they view the world the same way you do. You probably don't want them throwing their weight around You can argue that you don't like that they are accountable to their shareholders but it is true.
  - iamdbtoo 5y ago
    No, I don't assume that. That's a very wrong assumption on your part.

villgax 5y ago

Pretty similar to what India govt did with farmer protests by acting as if it didn't happen & anyone contradicting the govt was branded as anti-national for stupid reasons

pySSK 5y ago
This is the opposite however, where Germany is standing up for the rights of people opposed to the the government. I can't imagine Modi government doing anything like that. It would have been similar had India fined YouTube for removing videos of farmer protests.

chomp 5y ago

What's the law in question? If someone posts something that (in my opinion alone) is ridiculous as a comment on my blog and I remove it, would I have to pay a fine in Germany? Why is it okay for the government to compel speech? Edit: Looks like it's for not upholding its terms of service.

dqpb 5y ago
What would you think about a telecom that prevents you from calling someone because of the things they’ve been saying over the phone?
- chomp 5y ago
  I’d say I’d find a new telecom. Or I’d start or invest in a competitor. At what size and revenue does one lose the ability to remove speech they don’t agree with? If someone posts publicly viewable speech, is it my rite to bear that speech forever?

Navarr 5y ago

What's the law they ran afoul of here? I'm getting the impression from the Google Translate'd version of this[1] article, that they violated a contract with the company? [1]: https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article232421961/OLG-Dresden-verhaengt-100-000-Euro-Ordnungsgeld-gegen-YouTube.html https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article232421961/OLG...

er4hn 5y ago
It looks like the issue was the amount of time that Google took to comply. Per the article: > “With the historically high fine, the Higher Regional Court makes it very clear that court decisions must be observed without restriction, regardless of whether YouTube assumes a violation of its guidelines or not,”
red_trumpet 5y ago
If I understand correctly, the fine was imposed because Youtube failed to comply with the order of the court to make the video accessible again, which took them several weeks (20. April - 14. May 2020). What confuses me is that the article states the video was removed in January, which would only make sense if it was January 2021, because January 2020 there were no restrictions in Switzerland. Maybe the above date should be May 2021. I think the relevant piece from the Welt article is this: > Es [the court] kam unter anderem zu dem Schluss, die geänderten Richtlinien seien nicht wirksam in den Vertrag mit dem Accountbetreiber einbezogen worden. Hierzu sei ein Änderungsvertrag erforderlich. Der bloße Hinweis, dass es künftig Änderungen geben könne, genüge nicht. Roughly translated, the changed ToS of Youtube were not contractually effective, because the user was not asked to accept them. Stating that changes can happen any time is not enough.
- onli 5y ago
  Should be about something else than ToS, the quote is talking about a contract. The news is not sufficient to understand what supposedly happened there. That the Youtuber had a contract with Youtube, is that common? Maybe the court judged the partner program agreements as one? That "future changes may apply without notice" is invalid in Germany, that's evident. Companies writing bullshit like that in AGBs (ToS) or contracts don't realize Germany is not the US, they need a new legal team. If the news is correct you are right about the fine being about ignoring the court, not about removing the video in the first place. With a fine that high it has to be about that, there is no way removing a regular video could cause this. Basically the court saw youtube in contempt of the court, kinda. Might also be politically charged though, East Germany is highly penetrated by Nazis and with a high percentage of corona deniers. Depends on the judge of course whether that was a factor here.

dkdk8283 5y ago

Great! Time to bring this ideological principles to the US.

deadalus 5y ago

Youtube Alternatives : Centralized : Dailymotion, Bitchute, Rumble, DTube, Vimeo, Vidlii Decentralized : Odysee(LBRY), Peertube

rickstanley 5y ago
How does one contribute to these (de)centralized alternatives? Apart from sharing links?
- deadalus 5y ago
  You can upload videos and help seed videos too. Other ways to help are here : https://lbry.tech/contribute https://lbry.tech/contribute
ravenstine 5y ago
All the alternatives are far-far-right as far as "trusted sources" are concerned. What is anyone supposed to do if even LBRY is considered a tool of radical right wing extremists? If you cant get your family and friends on it then its near worthless.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- readflaggedcomm 5y ago
  If they're that prejudiced against tools based on political reputation, then they weren't that interested in using the tool in the first place.
meowster 5y ago
> Bitchute Never heard of them, but they seem to have chosen a poor name that might be censored elsewhere due to the first five letters.
- beezischillin 5y ago

partiallypro 5y ago

Merkel has stated that she didn't believe it was good that Facebook/Twitter banned Trump from their platforms fwiw.

jacob2484 5y ago
She also very strongly condemned what happened on Jan 6 and blamed Trump for it. She's right on both fronts.
nnamtr 5y ago
Merkel grew up in a country where you could be "banned" for anything. I'm not surprised that she doesn't like the idea of private companies deciding according to their own (not democraticly chosen) rules who should speak and who shouldn't.
namlem 5y ago
I don't see why Trump should be above the terms of service that all other users have to abide by.
- supergirl 5y ago
  it's not really about TOS though. it's about Twitter being legally allowed to remove any content from their website for whatever reason. the question is should they be allowed to do this given the monopoly they have. But I find it hilarious that Twitter/Google/etc. champion "free speech" in Russia, China, etc. yet in US they literally censored the sitting president and many people are OK with this.
  - namlem 5y ago
    There is certainly an argument to be made against arbitrary removals of content. I agree that perhaps there should be limits on networks above a certain size. However, Twitter banning Trump was anything but arbitrary. The fact that they didn't ban him sooner despite his frequent violations of their TOS is evidence that they were biased in his favor, if anything.
  - 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

howmayiannoyyou 5y ago

We blame Youtube/Google management, but in reality it's as much a tyranny of the company's employees and their political leanings. We've done a terrible job the last 30 years promoting national security literacy and constitutional integrity preservation to our youth. It may well be this country's undoing. No exaggeration.

jacob2484 5y ago
Couldn't agree more
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

neom 5y ago

Curious: Why can Germany fine YT for something that happened in Switzerland?

zionic 5y ago
Germany has a military/police force and Google doesn’t, yet.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
MauranKilom 5y ago
Just that the video was taken in Switzerland does not mean that a German court has no jurisdiction over a user uploading said video (presumably from Germany - not clear from this article or a German source version).
- neom 5y ago
  I understand, I was searching around myself for the answer, but I'm not at all versed in EU or German law. Only thing I could think of is it doesn't matter where it was filmed or who uploaded it, if was removed from german audience of youtube? Or it was filmed in Switzerland and uploaded by a German? I can't find anything in the news and I'd love to know the answer to this :)
notquitehuman 5y ago
It looks and sounds like imperialism, but perhaps there’s a more benign reason?

yreg 5y ago

Maybe an unpopular opinion, but I believe a website should be able to choose what videos it hosts. If it wants to host anything legal, liveleak-style - then that's fine. But if it decides to remove whatever video it wants then that also should be fine.

gentleman11 5y ago
It’s not a website, it’s almost every video on the internet and competitors can’t exist because of network effects
- eli 5y ago
  Sounds like an antitrust problem not a content policy problem
  - AdrianB1 5y ago
    Yes, you are right, but until the antitrust problem is solved, it is a content policy problem.
CountDrewku 5y ago
That's fine until a business monopolizes the entire industry and starts working in collusion with other tech companies to remove content they deem inappropriate.
rocqua 5y ago
This would work so much better in a federated model. One where there are multiple mutually compatible YouTube providers. If your current provider has a weird content policy, then you move. If all providers have a policy you don't like, then either you start your own, or you happen to be at the fringe of society. People so far at the fringe that they cannot gather momentum (especially on the internet) are either clearly wrong, or illegal. The second option still gives avenues for censorship. But hopefully democratic principles keep that under control.
FabHK 5y ago

theandrewbailey 5y ago

> "We have a responsibility to connect our users with trustworthy information and to combat misinformation during Covid-19." Who gave them that responsibility? I didn't. If no one did, why do they think they have that responsibility? Do they feel that they are the final authority on all matters that they forget that their users are humans capable of coming to their own conclusions?

bjoli 5y ago
Do you believe that a central part in how many people interact with the internet doesnt have any moral responsibilities?

the_optimist 5y ago

Does anyone have a link to the argument from Youtube/Google on why they chose to remove videos of this documentary information? Was there some philosophy that they claimed to be representing? What was the basis? Can this be interpreted in any way other than a vulgar attempt to misrepresent historic reality?

spfzero 5y ago
I believe they'd say it fell under their "covid misinformation" ban. I don't know how they can say that some video of a thing that actually happened, as it was happening, could be "misinformation", but that term gets to be interpreted however anyone wants these days.

supergirl 5y ago

the fine is for not obeying the court order to put back the video: > “With the historically high fine, the Higher Regional Court makes it very clear that court decisions must be observed without restriction, regardless of whether YouTube assumes a violation of its guidelines or not,” an attorney for the plaintiff, Joachin Steinhoefel, said in a statement on Twitter.

johnnyApplePRNG 5y ago

Anyone have a link to the actual video in question?

eqvinox 5y ago

I've tried to find the actual court decision, best match seems to be 4 W 118/21 (enter on https://www.justiz.sachsen.de/esamosplus/pages/index.aspx https://www.justiz.sachsen.de/esamosplus/pages/index.aspx under "Aktenzeichen" & click "suchen", can't see any obvious way to link the PDF...) However, that document does not actually order a fine. It warns about imposing one ("up to 250'000€") if Youtube doesn't remedy the problem. Considering it's now exactly 3 months later (decision dates April 13th), that lines up. From what I understand (not a lawyer, yadda yadda) this is a purely civil matter and doesn't really go as far as some statement on free speech. The issue discussed mostly seems to revolve around which terms of service are valid and how they can be changed.

elevenoh 5y ago

Is youtube really that willing to kill their reputation in the eyes of all truth seekers?

holoduke 5y ago

A good move. Everything so big as YouTube should follow national laws. Otherwise private terms of policies become more part of society than national ones. Then the hundreds of years of fighting becomes nothing and we are back in a modern kingdom based society.

shdh 5y ago
It would be interesting to apply a varying degree of regulation based on an organizations size/revenue. Startups less regulation, global conglomerates more regulation.
bpsh 5y ago
What if it is an authoritarian government that enacts national laws for the purpose of censorship?
- oceanplexian 5y ago
  They already do, and Google complies with those laws. See China. It is quite telling that Google seems to put more effort into complying with the CCP than German law, however.
- cblconfederate 5y ago
  When did youtube , or any big tech not comply with local laws in authoritarian countries? Never, their position is not one of activism it's "I'm OK with that" https://www.engadget.com/facebook-turkey-emails-200407588.html https://www.engadget.com/facebook-turkey-emails-200407588.ht...?
- genericone 5y ago
  Companies themselves are authoritarian organizations that enact international policies for the purpose of extracting wealth from a local population. Countries that have skin in the game for their own geography are the least of your worries, they are optimizing locally. Meddlers without skin in the game are more problematic.
ehsankia 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

FabHK 5y ago

IANAL. But reading the "Urteil", it seems that it is rather technical in nature. In particular, someone uploaded a video. YT said that it violated its COVID-19 guidelines and removed it. Plaintiff said, listen, we had a contract, you can't just delete my stuff. YT said, well, the movie contravenes the current COVID-19 guidelines. Plaintiff said, well, but it doesn't contravene the guidelines you had at the time we made the contract. YT says, fair enough, but we changed the guidelines. Court says, you can't just unilaterally change the ToS unless you make a new contract. YT said, well, we said we could change the guidelines. Court says, yeah, but just saying that the guidelines might change does not give you the right to change the guidelines unilaterally unless you say in the ToS not only that you might change the ToS but that you reserve the right to unilaterally change the ToS and then notify the user of the changed ToS and then have the user agree to the new ToS (either explicitly or implicitly by continuing to use the service). Thus, old ToS apply. So, don't remove the video that was in line with old guidelines. TLDR: - YT has to pay a fine because the court says, look, there was a contract, stick to it, and they didn't stick to it. - This has nothing to do with COVID-19, or free speech. It's purely contract law. - My prediction: YT will change its ToS and include the pertinent clauses, we'll all agree to the new ones, and then they'll be able to delete anything they want anytime they want (in accordance with their new ToS).

idownvoted 5y ago

It certainly wasn’t “Germany“ that fined YouTube. Because… a) anti-lockdown is anti Government b) the removals are usually done by outsourcing service providers, often ironically by Arvato a subsidiary of Germany‘s biggest media conglomerate and staunch supporter of the lockdowns and last but not least because c) it was a regional court that slapped the fine Note that it did so not because of the „severity“ which it assigned to YT‘s malfeasance, but because big tech is so powerful that it just didn’t care what that local court had ordered in the first place. 100k€ is nothing to google so prepare for bigger sums until their service desk responds to the rule of law.

failwhaleshark 5y ago

Interesting. What happens when one country requires removing content while another country requires it to stay?

thatsabadidea 5y ago

So many censorship apologists.

joshsyn 5y ago

It would be nice if google simply ceases operation in Germany and blame its government for adding difficulties and then watch the germans infuriate over their own government.

dirkt 5y ago
Youtube already tried [1] this for seven years with music videos in their licensing disagreement with the GEMA. And the world didn't break down in Germany, even though plenty of Germans were infuriated, which is why I guess they came to an agreement in the end... [1] https://www.dw.com/en/why-the-youtube-music-deal-in-germany-doesnt-make-every-video-available/a-36233864 https://www.dw.com/en/why-the-youtube-music-deal-in-germany-...
- em-bee 5y ago
  a lot of germans sided with youtube on this one. the overreach of the GEMA is a thorn in the side of many music producers and consumers